Painting a Thrift Store Find

I have a seriously embarrassing lack of seating in my house. One of the things about moving from a 900 sq ft apartment to a 1450 sq ft house....you can't fit many chairs in 900 sq ft, but it starts to get embarrassing when I try to have people over now. I shuffle chairs from the dining room to my music room so I and my cello students can have a place to sit. I thought about it the other day....I only had 5 dining-ish chairs. I'm not really sure how I ended up with that odd number, but I decided to remedy the situation.

There is a thrift store not far from the house called Southern Thrift that I've taken to wandering through every so often. Sometimes I don't find anything, sometimes I find something really cool....like this guy.

Now, I know it looks a little worse for wear in this picture, but I figured that for $3 (thanks to the fact that Southern Thrift gives 50% off all furniture every Monday), I could scrape off the K-Swiss sticker, sand it down and give it a fresh coat of paint.

I chose a basic glossy white. The other chairs in the dining room are stained wood, but they were significantly darker stained wood with upholstery (and don't match), and I liked the idea of a little variance. The other thing I chose to do was use spray paint with primer already in it. I'm all about saving work where I can. Some people call it lazy....I like to call it efficient.

I dragged the chair outside, sanded it down and then wiped it down with a damp rag. Once it was dry, I started spraying in thin and even coats (to avoid drips). Here's a picture after the first coat.

It took two full coats, plus a few touch ups. I let it cure for a few days in the garage before bringing it into the house to let the paint harden and to give the paint stink a chance to dissipate. Here's the finished product.

I like the contrast of the white with the darker wood tones and the aqua color on the walls. Have you been painting furniture lately? Tackling other projects? I'd love to hear about them!